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Trading reviews, my first quest Shadow of Albanie.
shadowbox
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
Hey it would be awesome if you guys could checkout my first quest, it's titled Shadow of Albanie and it's code is in my sig, if you have a quest you'd like me to review just post a reply with your code and i will give it a spin, just make sure your quest is soloable and under 60 minutes long.
Also if i don't end up tipping your map, i either A closed the review screen without meaning too and i will replay your quest and review it, or B it won't let me tip your map for some reason, it's happend a few times.
Reviews
Populist Animal Revolution
Alright so i did your quest, i forgot to tip though sorry about that . My major complaints are that the landscape is a bit sparse or sometimes over decorated in areas, examples being the over world village felt a bit to empty, and the inside sometimes had to much clutter namely Porkpoleons room, though i did enjoy the comical side of the quest so bonus points for that.
Overall it's entertaining and keeps you engaged, but it could use some work on the visual side IMO, though i can tell you spent a lot of time on dialog and i do know how much of a pain in the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> that can be.
3 Stars
Exarah's Tomb
Alright so i did Exarah's Tomb: The Forgotten, i really like the layout and the fights were entertaining, my only complaints being that the last bit was kind of predictable, and the way quests and dialog were meshed together while a cool idea felt a bit awkward at times.
All in all i gave it 4 stars.
The Lost City
Liked the story a lot, some of the dialog had mistakes, or lines that didn't make sense but there weren't very many, my biggest complaint was the forest, it needs a more diverse set of trees, less bushes more grass, and some kind of land marks, other than that i loved it.
On a site note, this is more of a personal thing, i would prefer a less combat oriented puzzle in the end, and the last fight was a bit on the easy side, but i am a GWF so that may just be because of my class.
4 Stars.
And i replayed it and put my review on your quest, phew now for everyone else.
The Black Hand in Blacklake
This quest has very nice encounters and dialog, but i felt the environment and story were fairly generic, not much to say beyond that.
4 Stars.
Swine Town Part 1
I like the fights in this quest but it has it's issues, firstly it needs more context, i had no idea why i was doing anything i was doing the entire time nor did i really care all that much, my other issue is with randomly attacking the High Curator, it seems like a stretch to assume the PC would want to just decide to kill him.
Luckily Lark has some interesting dialog and the environments while not stellar are interesting and unique
4 Stars.
The Fear that Freeze
Alright so firstly i'm going to say this is one of my favorite so far, but it isn't without it's issues, first thing i didn't like was how ecstatic Tybald was about seeing dead things, most children while curious aren't so obsessed with death, secondly you had some clipping issues in the crypt in the halls, and last i feel you should rename Smellytown and the Crypt of Fear, both names are very strange and don't really fit thematically.
4 Stars.
Also if i don't end up tipping your map, i either A closed the review screen without meaning too and i will replay your quest and review it, or B it won't let me tip your map for some reason, it's happend a few times.
Reviews
Populist Animal Revolution
Alright so i did your quest, i forgot to tip though sorry about that . My major complaints are that the landscape is a bit sparse or sometimes over decorated in areas, examples being the over world village felt a bit to empty, and the inside sometimes had to much clutter namely Porkpoleons room, though i did enjoy the comical side of the quest so bonus points for that.
Overall it's entertaining and keeps you engaged, but it could use some work on the visual side IMO, though i can tell you spent a lot of time on dialog and i do know how much of a pain in the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> that can be.
3 Stars
Exarah's Tomb
Alright so i did Exarah's Tomb: The Forgotten, i really like the layout and the fights were entertaining, my only complaints being that the last bit was kind of predictable, and the way quests and dialog were meshed together while a cool idea felt a bit awkward at times.
All in all i gave it 4 stars.
The Lost City
Liked the story a lot, some of the dialog had mistakes, or lines that didn't make sense but there weren't very many, my biggest complaint was the forest, it needs a more diverse set of trees, less bushes more grass, and some kind of land marks, other than that i loved it.
On a site note, this is more of a personal thing, i would prefer a less combat oriented puzzle in the end, and the last fight was a bit on the easy side, but i am a GWF so that may just be because of my class.
4 Stars.
And i replayed it and put my review on your quest, phew now for everyone else.
The Black Hand in Blacklake
This quest has very nice encounters and dialog, but i felt the environment and story were fairly generic, not much to say beyond that.
4 Stars.
Swine Town Part 1
I like the fights in this quest but it has it's issues, firstly it needs more context, i had no idea why i was doing anything i was doing the entire time nor did i really care all that much, my other issue is with randomly attacking the High Curator, it seems like a stretch to assume the PC would want to just decide to kill him.
Luckily Lark has some interesting dialog and the environments while not stellar are interesting and unique
4 Stars.
The Fear that Freeze
Alright so firstly i'm going to say this is one of my favorite so far, but it isn't without it's issues, first thing i didn't like was how ecstatic Tybald was about seeing dead things, most children while curious aren't so obsessed with death, secondly you had some clipping issues in the crypt in the halls, and last i feel you should rename Smellytown and the Crypt of Fear, both names are very strange and don't really fit thematically.
4 Stars.
Post edited by shadowbox on
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Comments
This quest is very hard. I think people will be more apt to play if you can get the star trails to show them the correct places to go. It's a long adventure as it is, and I don't think the wondering around trying to find places is helping you tell the story. Also, at that last crazy hard battle, it would be nice for people if the re-spawn point was much closer. But, yeah, great maps. Looks like you put a lot of work in them.
Give my quest a review when you can. I'm trying to shorten it, so I need some more people to run it to check the current time of it (listed as 19 min now). See my signature.
My Quest:
Exarah's Tomb: The Forgotten
NW-DNRBBXZK3
NW-DMFGWPBN3 The Lost City - Review Thread
Check the sign to return the favor
Campaign - In The Streams of Inferno
Act I : The Fear That Freeze - nw-dnuzsyeey
Act II : Demons Never Sleep - nw-dbj2us96n
WIP
Post-play edit:
Okay, so, not a bad quest overall. The difficulty I found just right (if I was going into it for purely hack and slash reasons). At the same time, though, I'm a trickster rogue, so it's not going to be as easy for me as it will be for GWFs and the like. Storywise, it's a good premise, but it can use a lot of work. First, the basics. Grammar and punctuation need a lot of work. There were a few spelling errors mixed in, too near the end of it, mostly accidentally misplaced spaces (i.e. sou lanchor instead of soul anchor).
Now, as for specifics. I found Guard Frinko's little speech a bit too informative. It doesn't really jive with the Captain's words, either. The Captain is supposed to have become a pest with how many requests he's sent to Neverwinter. Frinko doesn't relay any of the annoyance they might have about the Captain's overbearing, constant requests. At least that's the sense I got from the Captain at Backwater. Also, the beginning of the Frinko conversation. Job posting, of course, but you also have to contend with the fact that other foundry creators will be using Frinko, so it could be any of the job posting, he's asking about. It would be more believable if you the character brings up the conversation of a job posting and which job specifically it is.
The Courtesan's list... Don't really need to list it in OOC. The list makes itself apparent with the quest, so, it's pretty much useless info that's going to be revealed anyway. It degrades the storytelling a bit. As for foundry tips for this particular part, you might want to drag the Paladin and Noble quest portion up and next to the one with the crazy halfling. That way, people can do all three in any order they please. It also makes the use of a "list" more believable storywise.
The guy that guards the portal. I can understand his fighting to the death to make you prove yourself, but he seems rather naive in his belief that if he can be beaten, so can his boss. He seems overly-confident that you can do it... I'd suggest maybe toning down his confidence... maybe inserting more "maybes" as in, "maybe you just might be able to do it," or "maybe you have the strength of will to overcome Syl's power." It'd also make his giving you his strength to overcome Syl's will a bit more believable, even though, that whole exchange feels arbitrary. Course, that could just be, because of the overwhelming confidence he has in you. It's pretty much, "here's the rest of my strength, apparently, I was wrong about the level of your power, but I'm not gonna say anything about that at all." The fact that he survived long enough to give you the rest of his strength is also a bit unbelievable. He must have not been that injured to begin with, which makes me wonder why he thinks anyone that can beat him would be strong enough to beat his boss, when a non-life-threatening wound would incapacitate him. Maybe have him fight to submission, then have him join you.
Syl. I'm not a fan at all of OOC. Games are visual just as much as they're story. I understand that you can't really show all of what you want her to do to the character through the emotes, but I felt that some of it could be shown. That being said, I suggest looking over your OOC stuff and getting rid of the stuff you can replace with emotes (which would include breaking up what's being said with a few "continue" options to further along the dialogue).
Finally, the actual job to be done... First, it seems the stuff in Backwater keep feels completely arbitrary. First, your character knows that Albanie is having trouble, why not just go straight to Albanie instead of stopping in at Backwater Keep? If you keep Albanie out of it until after the quests in Backwater it wouldn't feel so arbitrary. An "Oh, hey, we're having trouble in town, think you could help?" and then after, "There's one last thing I need you to check on, we've lost contact with the town that supplies us our food, could you go check on it?" You'd probably have to change Frinko's conversation, too... to something a bit more vague (i.e. "Backwater has requested aid, can you go check to see what their problem is and help in any way you can?")
Overall, it's not a bad story, the storytelling just needs a bit of work.
As for scenery, you put together a pretty nice little town. Some of the wall placement could use a bit of work. The towers you travel under could probably have the walls scooted a bit more under them, and they can also be lowered a bit more into the ground to get rid of that awful window that's created between the bottom of the tower's room section and the top of the walls. Other than that, I'd suggest taking a look at some of the decals that litter the ground, there was a spot that stood out as having a bit too much clutter. It was the spot just after one of the tower-gates into what I'm guessing is the slums area. There was supposed to be hay on the ground and while each piece is not that pronounced by itself, when you see three spots close together (in what I'm guessing is to make it more obvious that hay is there) it draws more attention to the oddity of it rather than the eloquence of the scenery.
That all being said. I gave it four stars. It was well done, but it could do with improvement.
Prologue: Fort Neverember
NW-DL2RVQ54C
Chapter 1: The Gray Portrait
NW-DHGEFBMGD
- The keep felt a little awkward to navigate. Also, I noted that everything happened on one side of the keep. The player has no reason to go and see your design of the opposite side. You could move one or two objectives (Evelyn/paladin/tiefling girl) there
- The village feels too bland and empty. Adding a few more details wouldn't hurt
- When I was searching the village for clues, I didn't see any bush. There was just plain ground with sparkles above it. Though that might be a display bug
- The path to the Dusk Valley is too steep. You have to jump the edges to get up
- The whole part with Veloth feels like a completely different person designed it. It is way too... cliche. I hate cliches. Come one... bad guy tells you his plan because he is going to kill you anyway? And then you defeat him, he regrets his decisions and decides to help you? That part ruined the whole atmosphere for me. Hell, I would have preferred to skip that part altogether and instantly go to Shadow Enclave (because Shadow Enclave was awesome! It's a proof that you can design a great-looking environment with just a few props)
Four stars overall. It's not bad, but there are things that could be improved.
By the way, I am not quite sure why would you name the place Albanie. That's actually a nice country.
NW-DMFGWPBN3 The Lost City - Review Thread
And thanks Maerwin i pretty much completely agree with your opinion, i actually wasn't at all happy with Veloth and i'm going to be working on redesigning some of his dialog until i'm happy with it, but yeah your other points are spot on, thanks for the help.
Good looking areas. Might just need a bit more going on with NPCs and whatnot.
The dialogue needs a pretty big overhaul. The run-on sentences and grammatical errors were very distracting. If it was just one or two instances here and there, it wouldn't have bothered me so much. It was throughout the entire quest, though. If you know someone who's good with that sort of thing, you should see if they'd be willing to give the text a once-over.
Other than the issues already mentioned in some of the above posts, not too many complaints. Nothing was broken on my playthrough. While there were some difficult fights, it didn't feel too unreasonable. Gave it 4 stars.
My foundry you can find in my signature
Done - really like your foundry - the start city looks lilbit empty and the middle of the second city (albien?) looks a lilbit empty too but at least your foundry is still nice and i enjoyed to play it
The combat was good, environments were engaging, and it had about the right amount of challenge. However, the dialogue needs a massive overhaul. I see you're already working on this, but yeah, that's my major gripe with it. In particular here are a few other things I noticed:
Some intractable objects have their default foundry name, such as the stone formation and flowers in the Albanie city.
It's a bit distracting when the first guy you beat up, outside the portal, is kneeling before you talk to him but falls flat on his back as soon as you start talking.
Searching for clues in the village could've used a little more direction I think.
I gave it 3/5 stars but I'll revise my rating once I see the updated dialogue. If you'd be willing to give my quest a whirl, that'd be super: NW-DTWX9RBQH
Part One: The Fell Cavern (looking for feedback!) NW-DTWX9RBQH
Hopefully more to come!
1- well the biggest one is that i your quest doesn't finish, it just takes you back to Neverwinter and then it's gone, though relogging fixed t his and i'm sure this is out of your control so i will not factor it in.
2- Your environments could use work, the caverns went a bit overboard with fire and nothing else, it's all pretty bare bone, the best area for visuals is the spider cavern area, though it could still use more, such as bones and webs on the ceiling and walls.
3- Your enemies are varied in strange ways, the scroll is supposed to weaken barriers between planes, i would pick 1 plane for example the Far Realm, then utilize the costumes tab to reskin encounters to match a singular theme, as it is now i feel it is kind of all over the place.
4- A few grammatical errors but these are minor and won't affect my rating, one was when you first speak to the merchant about what you did on the bridge and it says stint instead of stunt, the other one i found was with your mushroom, it says These mushrooms are emit a strange glow. Just get rid of the "are" and you are good.
Over all 3 stars, make the environments more interesting, and hone down your enemy types then i would give it a 4.
Also if you are thinking of reviewing my quest right now it is in a bit of a broken state with the publishing bug right now, so i would wait until that is fixed and version 2 is out.
I'll definitely try to improve the cavern's looks, though I actually did want to put some webs on the walls in the spider area but was having difficulty getting them to "look right," given that the craggy walls aren't straight. Still, I'm going to try and do something there. As for the monsters, I understand the confusing elements. I'll need to decide what I want to do there--the story definitely involves the Elemental Chaos and the Shadowfell. The plague-touched were only there to reinforce the idea that the cavern was twisted by the Spellplague, but they can probably be replaced, particularly if I alter the environment to give more of that feel. I have some ideas there.
And yeah, I'll wait until you're finished with your revision to give it another run-through. Thanks again for the review, I'm looking for ways to improve this for sure!
Part One: The Fell Cavern (looking for feedback!) NW-DTWX9RBQH
Hopefully more to come!
In any case thanks for taking the time to post here, it's been nice getting peoples feedback on my quest, and even more fun trying all the different quests on here, cool to see what other people came up with.
On the map transition leaving for Albanie you might want to make the interactable sphere a little higher and more on the gate. It was a bit hard to see on the ground.
Also, when turning in the quest the dialog option had the [missioninfo] tags showing. Thanks for putting this quest together.
If you have a chance, check mine out. I've heard that it's too difficult at high levels and too easy at low levels. Confirmation either way would be nice. Thanks.
A Short Dig - NW-DA8O42CFF
Over all 4 stars.
I'm also taking reviews again, so if you want to give my quest a try, just make sure the version you play is 2.0
Title: Dark Hallows
Code: NW-DCCEQXP4D
Code: NW-DCCEQXP4D